Shortage of Affordable and Available Rental Units

SECTION THREE: Challenges for Renters

Over 70% of Florida’s low-income renter households are cost-burdened, and 45% of low-income renters are severely cost-burdened . As Section 2 demonstrated, severe cost-burden is especially widespread among very low-income renter households (those with incomes ≤50% AMI). Moreover, the share of renters between 30% and 80% AMI that are severely costburdened has increased dramatically since 2005 (see Table 1).

This section dives into further detail about specific factors that drive high housing cost burdens among low-income renters.

Mismatch Between Rents and Wages

As Table 4 shows, jobs with low wages and low to medium skill levels are prevalent in Florida. To determine the wages needed to afford rental housing in different regions, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) calculates a “housing wage”—the minimum hourly wage required to afford housing at Fair Market Rent (FMR). A metro area’s FMR, calculated annually by HUD, is usually equal to the 40th percentile of combined rent and utility costs for all units with a given number of bedrooms — somewhat less expensive than a medianpriced unit.

Figure 7 compares median wages for common occupations to the “housing wage” for the 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom FMRs in the Tampa-St. PetersburgClearwater metropolitan area, the Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach metropolitan areas, and the Ocala metropolitan division. For cashiers, waitresses, janitors, and other low-wage workers that support the economy and quality of life in these regions, paying for rental housing can be a struggle. Only in Ocala do any of the ten occupations shown have a median wage sufficient to afford even a 1-bedroom apartment. Nowhere can the median wage for these common occupations pay for a two-bedroom unit without being cost-burdened.

Of the three metro areas, the mismatch between rents and wages is most pronounced in the Tampa Bay area, where, even with overall higher wages, some median wages